I like the way that Reynold is coming at this. I am aware of the rule mandating English for discussions. But in the interests of having no more rules than are strictly necessary, is it not sufficient to tell PMCs (and PPMCs): "Do whatever you believe will engage the largest possible community."
Most PMCs will choose English. Some won’t. Times they are a changing. Julian > On Nov 10, 2016, at 11:42 PM, Reynold Xin <r...@apache.org> wrote: > > Background: I have no tie to RocketMQ. I didn't even know about it until > today and I don't know any of the people associated with the project. I am > Chinese but living in the US. I'm purely playing devil's advocate about a > meta-point here and don't know if it applies to RocketMQ or not. > > I definitely agree with Jeff's point that "my thoughts about community > would be getting as many people and users involved as possible". > > That said, for a project started in China, it is unclear switching the > primary development language from Chinese to English would help with > accomplishing that goal. While lowering the bar for non-Chinese speakers to > participate, it will limit the efficacy of its original developers, and > increases the bar for more Chinese developers, which are the more natural, > immediate expansion targets for the community. > > If we as a community want to enforce the usage of English as the standard, > we should just explicitly say that. > > I'd avoid using the argument that English will bring more users, as it is > not defensible and risk being interpreted as western arrogance. Afterall, > three out of the six largest Internet companies (by market cap) are > currently in mainland China, and they all have enormous daily active users > even though they are targeting primarily Chinese. > > > On Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 11:14 PM, Jeff Genender <jgenen...@apache.org> > wrote: > >> I would think that English is generally used because its the most >> international language, not because its the most used in the world. Thus >> it helps cross borders for communication. At the end of the day, I think >> you need to look at your community and ask if you want it to cross borders >> or not. Do you want worldwide contribution (and adoption)? I can tell you >> that I glean a lot of information from the mail lists when I run into >> problems or issues using Apache software. If the discussions are in >> Chinese, you may miss a lot of people who can be a part of the discussion >> from outside of China. I think you really need to think about who you want >> your users to be and how you want your product adopted. >> >> In addition, this is an incubated project. AFAICT, the champion doesn’t >> speak Chinese, and I am wild-guessing maybe 2 of the mentors do. This >> means the other mentors may have a difficult time steering the project when >> they are needed. It makes it difficult for the champion to asses any >> problems without having someone notify him of a translated issue. In the >> unlikely event that the project requires input from the incubation PMC or, >> the board for that matter, it would be very difficult to get a proper >> insight into the issues without have solid knowledge of the language. >> >> I personally don’t know of any rule or regulation that locks down a >> language and perhaps a board member can chime in on that. But my .02 is >> that if I were bringing a project to Apache, my thoughts about community >> would be getting as many people and users involved as possible. If you >> don’t use a more cross-border/international language, then I believe that >> you may ultimately be hindering your project beyond your borders. I think >> that would be a shame. OTOH, maybe your desire is to keep RocketMQ a >> Chinese piece of software. I guess that is ok too… but I would be >> interested in why. >> >> Just my usual .02. >> >> Jeff >> >>> On Nov 10, 2016, at 11:53 PM, Tom Barber <t...@spicule.co.uk> wrote: >>> >>> I believe I saw something the other day where someone was talking about >> diverse languages on mailing lists. personally I think it's okay but >> obviously it decreases the chance of participation of others. >>> >>> of course the old saying "if it wasn't discussed on the list it never >> happened" didn't mention the language. >>> >>> Thought must be taken for jira and code comments as well. how would non >> Chinese speaking people follow development? >>> >>> >>> On 11 Nov 2016 06:45, "Reynold Xin" <r...@apache.org <mailto: >> r...@apache.org>> wrote: >>> Adding members@ >>> >>> On Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 10:40 PM, Reynold Xin <r...@apache.org <mailto: >> r...@apache.org>> wrote: >>> >>>> To play devil's advocate: is it OK for Apache projects that consist >>>> primarily of Chinese developers to communicate in Chinese? Or put it >>>> differently -- is it a requirement that all communications must be in >>>> English? >>>> >>>> I can see an inclusiveness argument for having to use English, as >> English >>>> is one of the most common languages. However, many talented software >>>> developers in China don't have the sufficient level of proficiency >> when it >>>> comes to English, as the penetration rate of English in China is much >> lower >>>> than other countries. It is as hard for Chinese speakers to learn >> English >>>> as for English speakers to learn Chinese. >>>> >>>> One can certainly argue forcing everybody to use English will also >> exclude >>>> those Chinese developers, and from the perspective of the number of >> native >>>> speakers, Mandarin (a Chinese dialect) outnumbers English 3 to 1 >> according >>>> to Wikipedia. >>>> >>>> Similar argument also applies to Japanese, and many other countries, >>>> except the number of Chinese speakers is much larger. >>>> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
